Students
for Shakespeare, launched in 1996, has attracted thousands
of area public school students to the Free For All by providing transportation
and free t-shirts, fun books and drawings for scholarship savings
bonds. The Shakespeare Theatre Company Free For All's unique contribution
to the community was recognized with the Washington Post Distinguished
Service Award in 1992 and the 1997 Public Humanities Award presented
by the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C.
The Shakespeare Theatre Company Free For All is a highlight of Washington's
theatre season, a traditional outing that attracts the city's most diverse
audience.
Championed by Kahn and Shakespeare Theatre Company founding chairman
R. Robert Linowes, and made possible with invaluable support from The
Washington Post, Philip L. Graham Fund and a committed group of community-minded
sponsors, the Free For All proved an enormous success its first year,
attracting more than 2,500 theatregoers each night. Succeeding summers
have seen the Free For All build on its early promise, with audiences
flocking to see some of Shakespeare's greatest plays—Much Ado
about Nothing, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Henry
V and King Lear—performed by the Shakespeare Theatre
Company's actors and such guest artists as Sabrina LeBeauf, Kelly McGillis
and Harry Hamlin.
Former
Chair of the National Endowment of the Arts Jane Alexander, a frequent
attendee at Free For All productions, enthuses about the program's importance
to Washington: "I remember once when I was at the Free For All,
there was a couple sitting next to me with a very, very young child,
and I began to talk to them and I asked: 'Why are you here?' And they
said, 'Where else would we have the opportunity to introduce our child
to Shakespeare and be able to afford it?'"
Alexander sums up the sentiments shared by Kahn, the Shakespeare Theatre
Company and the many generous individuals, foundations and corporations
who make the Free For All possible each year: "The Free For All
is a wonderful success for everybody involved ... not just for the Shakespeare
Theatre Company, but for the entire city." |
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